On May 29, two solar generators in South Africa reached completion and came online to supply power to South Africa’s Eskom electricity grid. The two facilities, Lesedi and Letsatsi, were constructed by SolarReserve and produce 75 MW apiece. They are located in the Northern Cape and the Free State, respectively. Readers of this blog may remember that these two facilities are part of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer’s Program (REIPPP), and were approved by South Africa’s Department of Energy in their first round of bids. The generators will be able to power 130,000 South African homes, and as part of the REIPPP mandate, a portion of the revenue from these facilities will go towards development work in local communities. They represent the largest renewable energy projects in continental Africa and some of the biggest project finance transactions completed in South Africa. Both of the photovoltaic facilities have signed a 20 year power purchasing agreement with the South African electricity utility company Eskom, one of the largest in the world. Eskom currently generates 90% of its power from South Africa’s vast coal resources, but the nation is trying to reduce its carbon footprint through the REIPPP initiative mentioned above.

Over 7 gigawatts (GW) worth of new solar PV capacity was installed in Japan during the last fiscal year, according to numbers recently published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The numbers — compiled by the Agency for Natural Resouces and Energy (ANRE) — represent a 10-fold increase in installations over the previous year. The exact figures are for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, are 7.04 GW of new capacity, and for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, 1.66 GW — pretty significant growth. Interestingly, the big increase is mostly the result of a big uptick in commercial-scale solar power plant development — whereas the previous year’s growth was mostly via the residential rooftop sector (960 MW). The residential sector did grow in fiscal year 2013, though – by 1.3 GW. It simply lost its market share thanks to the addition of 5.73 GW of new commercial-scale capacity. Worth noting is the fact that a fair proportion of the commercial-scale capacity was installed just during the last month of the fiscal year — apparently in order to ensure a higher feed-in-tariff rate, as those were set to be lowered on April 1st. In related news, an 82 MW solar power plant recently came online in the eastern country, representing a notable chunk of newly installed capacity. The Oita Solar Project — as it’s known — has a 20-year power purchase agreement with Kyushu Electric Power Company. Annual output for the new power plant is expected to be somewhere around 87 million kWh. The modules used for the project were provided by Hanwha Q Cells.

JA Solar is already one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high performance solar cells, and just last February it launched its new 6×10 PERCIUM solar modules. JA Solar clams that its new PERCIUM solar cells are the first p-type solar cells to beat the 20 percent mark in conversion efficiency, which it puts at 20.4 percent (p-type refers to monocrystalline silicon solar cells). You don’t have to just take their word for it. The company tested thousands of its PERCIUM solar cells last year and consistently averaged above 20 percent, a result confirmed by Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE’s photovoltaic calibration laboratory. The 6×10 PERCIUM module has an average power rating of 285W. With a little more tweaking the rating could reach an average of 290W by the end of the year. The key to PERCIUM’s high efficiency is JA Solar’s focus on passivated backside and local BSF technology, which enables good low-light performance. Passivation refers to anti-corrosion materials, corrosion being an obvious enemy of solar cell efficiency. Conversion efficiency and low-light performance aren’t the only things that caught our eye. Here in the US, the cost of a solar cell accounts for roughly 35 percent of the installed cost of solar power. If you’re saving a significant amount on materials, fabrication, transportation, and installation you don’t have to push the efficiency envelope to the absolute limit in order to put together a cost-competitive package. JA Solar also seems to have an edge there. Altogether the 6×10 module produces about eight percent more power per unit area than average, and the module is designed to cut costs related to transportation and installation. The company also paid attention to balance-of-system costs, which is where the DC electricity from the solar cell gets converted to usable AC current. The company will set one production line going to produce the 6×10 modules in just a few days from now, and that one line is just the beginning. By October 2014 JA Solar expects to have four production lines up and running, and four more in 2015 for a total of eight. That adds up to 170MW of capacity this year, and about 350 MW next year. Just last February, Lux Research painted a rather gloomy picture of the outlook for concentrating solar power (CSP), partly due to gains in high efficiency solar cell development along with the falling cost of solar cells, and JA Solar’s march into the high effiency solar cell market bears that out. However, the solar cell industry is still dependent on exotic materials, and as the solar market grows that supply chain could get stretched pretty thin, giving concentrating solar power the edge.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) has authored the “2015 Energy and Water” bill, which was recently approved by a House Appropriations Committee subpanel. It calls for $113 million in cuts to renewable energy programs and over $500 million in increases for spending on fossil fuels.A statement from the bill’s press release summed up the changes: “In order to balance investments in all energy sources, research and development to advanced coal, natural gas, oil, and other fossil energy technologies, which will help the country make greater use of our rich natural energy resources and help keep down energy costs, are funded at $593 million – an increase of $30.9 million above the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. In addition, funding for nuclear energy research, development, and demonstration activities is increased by $9.8 million for a total funding level of $899 million. Renewable energy programs, which are funded at $1.8 billion in the bill, are cut by $113 million from last year’s enacted level.”One might assume from the misleading language used in the press release that wind and sunlight are not natural resources, but oil, coal and natural gas are. The full text of the proposed legislation is here, but be warned it is a PDF file over 60 pages.Some of the cuts were aimed at ARPA-E, eliminating about 81% of the program’s budget. A Democratic Representative from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur, said that the proposed cuts would effectively eliminate ARPA-E. She is the ranking member on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. (Kaptur helped secure Congressional funding for 180th Fighter Wing solar array and solar energy projects at the University of Toledo.)Eliminating ARPA-E would probably not be considered a particularly intelligent thing to do. One argument for keeping it operating is that it is too early to cut its funding, because it hasn’t been functioning long enough to reach its full potential.Earlier this year, some of its success was documented by Greentech Media. “On Tuesday, ARPA-E announced that twenty-two projects that have received about $95 million in federal funding have raised a collective $625 million in private-sector investment. That figure is up from last year’s tally of seventeen projects with $70 million in ARPA-E funding gathering $450 million in private sector funding.” Expecting all ARPA-E projects to always be successful is very unrealistic and is a standard not held to the private sector.

While that agency bills it as a 240-turbine project, if you check out the project information at the UK’s National Infrastructure Planning Portal it’s even more impressive.

As of this writing, the plans call for up to 325 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 1200 megawatts, located about 43 kilometers off the coast of Suffolk. It will cover an area of about 300 km.

In addition to the turbines, the project includes offshore collector and converter stations, up to four 73-kilometer seabed cables, and whatever else is needed for a National Grid connection at the Bramford Substation.

At Bramford the plans actually call for up to eight onshore cable ducts, although only four are needed for East Anglia One.

That’s because, as the name of the project suggests, this is just the beginning.

More And More Offshore Wind PowerThe developer of East Anglia One is a joint venture between the energy developer Scottish Power Renewables (Part of Iberdrola Group) and Sweden’s Vattenfall Wind Power state-owned utility company.